Selena Cardona is pursuing a PhD in education at Teachers College in the Sociology and Education program. She is also a senior research assistant at CCRC, where her work focuses on issues surrounding community college finance. Prior to receiving the PEAR Fellowship, she served as a staff assistant in the New York City office of U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer and worked as a research consultant for the Postsecondary National Policy Institute (PNPI) in Washington, DC. At PNPI, she was also a 2019 Summer Scholar. In addition to this, she has taught English abroad on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Bogotá, Colombia. Her research interests include inequities in college access, financial aid policy, workforce development, and the evolving role of the community college.
Cardona is a graduate of New York City public schools, where she was a 2013 recipient of the Gates Millennium Scholarship. Cardona holds an AB in sociology from Cornell University and an MA in education policy from Teachers College. As a master’s student, she specialized in data analysis and research methods and higher education policy.